Exclusive: Gypsy Sport's Rio Uribe Gets Real For #NYFW

There is the fashion week version of New York City, and then there is the real New York City, and Rio Uribe perfectly captured it on the Gyspy Sport runway.

For his spring 2016 collection, the CFDA nominated designer embraced the multiculturalism and individuality that you see every day on the streets of the city, and brought them to life on his catwalk. The models, who Uribe was still casting the night before the show, came in all shapes and sizes, from the pregnant model whose baby bump opened the show to the freckled male model wearing bold red lipstick.

And the models weren’t the only things that embraced the diversity aspect of the show. Uribe used Spanish lace, Chinese brocade, menswear fabrics, shells and raffia in a mash up of cultures and references taken to the limit. Even the messy red lipstick added a layer to the “don’t give a f**k attitude” that Uribe went for.

“I think when I claim I am inspired by New York City, I have to really show New York City,” Uribe told StyleBlazer exclusively backstage after the show. “What it looks like to me, which is lots of colors, lots of sizes… I want people to see someone out there and say ‘I can be that or I can do that.”

If you want to put a celebrity face on the collection, it is Jaden Smith, who rushed to his seat in the front row just as the lights dimmed. If you want an Instagram star, it is CardiB, who made her way down the runway, just one of Uribe’s many friends who were down to walk to show support.

After nine years in the Big Apple, the self-proclaimed “American ’80s baby born to teenage immigrants,” Uribe put together a love it or hate it collection capturing the essence of the city, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I feel like being part of this competition, they want me to be very commercial, be able to sell as much of the collection as possible,” Uribe said of the CFDA. “But I don’t want to stop being myself and doing what I feel people should be seeing.”